The display of the Confederate flag — anywhere — is a nonverbal statement of race hate. Its burning would be a nonverbal response to its crude attitude. You’re sure not going to change their attitudes with sweet reason. Fight their figurative fire with the real thing.

People who still believe in the values of the “Lost Cause” need to be educated about how normal people feel about their insurrection. We are happy that Abraham Lincoln and the Union army smashed a society based on cruel exploitation, rape and sadism.

We resent how your ancestors insisted on founding our nation on the Original Sin of slavery and how the poison of racism has permeated all 50 states, to some degree or another, to this very day, even with a black president in the White House.